Mr. C.J. King on graduation day at the Southern University Law Center earlier this year. By the rules Black women themselves have determined when it comes to what makes one an “eligible Black Man”, Mr. King without question fits the bill. Take that, ladies! Boom!

“Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.”
-Terry Pratchett

Among the many things I have predicted over the years, both on the air and in print, is that there would come a time when Black men would “come correct” and that Black women wouldn’t be ready for it. And once again, another of my predictions has come to pass.

By now you must be aware of the latest Black social media tempest in a teapot – one Mr. C.J. King, newly minted law school graduate of the Southern University Law Center. Although he has freely admitted that he has failed to pass the Louisana state bar exam on his first go, his twin brother did. Yet, this very common thing for Black law school grads is seen as a righteous putting of Mr. King in short pants after his remarks made on Instagram (As if Black women have any room to talk; the majority of Black women who attended college don’t graduate and only ten percent hold a graduate or professional degree as of 2018; for more on this, see BlackDemographics.com, “Black Women Statistics”, Educational Attainment section).

I quote Mr. King in full below:

“Now that I’m JD’d (bar number loading) I’ve entered into a new arena of black men, and in this arena I’M THE PRIZE NOW!!! Don’t just take my word for it though & before you kill me in the comments…Let me drop some stats for your ass right quick so you can see my point:

Black women outnumber black men by 2 million

Black women don’t want to deal with a black man who’s gay/down low, has baby mama issues, or has a felony conviction/record/in jail which collectively is a large percentage of our race unfortunately as statistically 37% of black men are in jail while 1/3 of black men have some form of criminal record

Black women typically don’t want to “date down” and prefer to have a black man that is on the same playing field as her or higher, well statistically only 7% of black men are professionals

With this massive criteria that black women don’t want in when dating a black man they have essentially drastically limited the dating pool of viable black men that majority of black women are currently after which means everyone doesn’t get picked and statistically 70% of black women go unmarried….you see where I’m going here??

Additionally, black women want their mate to be attractive, have some form of edge, style, to be exciting and not be a lame, etc…(I know all that is subjective, but everyone doesn’t have these so called “X-factors”) which lowers the number of viable black men even lower….

So with me now gaining access into this very small percentage of black men that are young (for the record I’m under 30 with 2 degrees), single and attractive, are heterosexual, have no criminal record, no baby mama drama, and have some form of high paying career potential, that majority of black women are competing against each other for…

You tell me who’s the real prize here???”

Mr. King’s post, made on Jan 16th of this year, has over the past few weeks set Black social media ablaze, with its heaviest users – Black women – clamoring at the gates calling for King’s head on a pike. His crimes?

1. “Knowing his worth” – a phrase Black women should know well, since they utter it with mind-numbing frequency every chance they get

2. Listening to what Black women say and have been saying for longer than Mr. King has been alive(!); and,

3. Actually delivering on what Black women claim to want – oh, the horror!

And, the most egregious act on Mr. King’s part,

4. Actually telling Black women that if they want elite Black men like Mr. King – and, make no mistake about it, by definition and by the rules Black women have set themselves, he is that guy – that they will have to compete for him.

Oh, the humanity!

Of course, Black women’s collective response to what would be considered simple truths and givens outside of Black America itself, was quickly met with howls of derision, attempts to belittle his accomplishments due to his failure to pass the bar on his first try (Please let the record show, that the late John F. Kennedy, Jr. failed the bar TWICE...ahem. Does anyone think that diminished the fact that he was in fact a “prize” in the eyes of White women? To ask the question, is to answer it), even though most Black women who attend college don’t even finish(!) and, of course, because he’s too “cocky and arrogant”. Uh, DUH, the guy should have some swagger, because he’s done something most Black men never do, ladies – something many of YOU have been whining, bitching, moaning and caterwauling about, for DECADES.

So now, when you finally get brothers like Mr. King rolling off the assembly line, there’s a problem?

Are you kidding me?

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WHERE’S THE LIE?
Of the several articles, if one can call them that, covering the id-fueled rage of Black women on social media in response to Mr. King’s post, none have actually dealt with what Mr. King said (“Law graduate goes viral with post about Black women: ‘I’m the prize now!’”, The Grio, May 1, 2020; “A Law School Graduate Declared Himself A Prize, It Did Not Go Well”, Madamnoire.com). For example, is Mr. King lying when he rattles off the statistics bearing on the sad mating prospects for Black women – particularly those who are supposedly educated, accomplished and urbane? Was Mr. King inaccurate in his statement about there being some two million more Black women than Black men? Did he get the numbers on Black men being locked up in jail wrong, too? What about what King had to say about Black men “on the downlow”, or who have baby mamas – or those Black men who are “beneath” the kinds of Black women who make what I refer to as Black Vaginavision Media generate literally billions of dollars a year, for decades (read: Blue Collar Brothas)? How about what Mr. King said about Black women bemoaning the dearth of attractive, suave Black men, to boot? Is any of what he said along these lines wrong – and if so, how is it that so different from what Black women themselves have been saying for years?

Again, to ask the question, is to answer it – none of the “pop culture/gossip” sites have actually addressed these points and for good reason: Because King is the sharp end of a long spear of Black men on the rise – something I have talked about in my corner of the internet for years now. The only difference was that Black men of my generation – “Generation X” – wasn’t as involved on what I refer to as “the Jumbotron of Black Life”, which is social media. For Black women especially, if it didn’t happen on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, it simply didn’t happen.

But Black men of the Millennial generation – who literally grew up in the shadows of big tech giants and de facto public utilities like the above mentioned, know and understand the real power of these platforms and what’s more, are not merely content to simply “stay humble” and do their duty. They are motivated, on the move, making things happen and they want the world to know it.

There’s simply no getting around it – everything Mr. King recounted in his Instagram post earlier this year was steel on target accurate. Just about every Black man reading this can recite from memory, the very same things King said. They are drilled into us by Black women both directly in the form of Black women in our day to day lives, to the aforementioned Black Vaginavision Media drilling it into us indirectly by television, the internet, entertainment, the academy and nowadays, social media. No matter how much Black women may want to deny it, it can be easily proven a gazillion ways to Sunday that Black women themselves have been bemoaning the very things King said for years.

And now, they’ve finally gotten what they wished for.

And they simply cannot handle it!

SHAMELESS PLUG AD BREAK: Like what you’re reading now? Wait till you see my very first book, “The Book of Obsidian: A Manual for the 21st Century Black American Gentleman”, which comes out Summer 2020! Here’s YOUR chance to help me bring the dream to life, by supporting “The Book of Obsidian Fundraising Campaign”! All the details are over at GoGetFunding.com. Now, back to the article!

BLACK WOMEN’S “OLIVIA POPE” MOMENT
Everyone knows well the insanely popular television drama “Scandal”, which chronicles the life and times of Ms. Olivia Pope – the dashingly dressed Washington, DC diva-insider-political mover and shaker. Black women across the country actually organized Scandal “watch parties” every week during its original network run and was a staple of “Twitter talk” for years. One particularly poignant scene from that show and which I think applies to today’s topic, is when “Liv” confronts the handsome and accomplished U.S. Senator Edison Davis – a real catch by anyone’s standard. In the scene, Liv returns the wedding ring that Davis gave her for the second time(!). Confused and frustrated, Davis demands to know what Liv wants and when she tells him, his response, before quietly leaving her for good, is “Love isn’t supposed to hurt”.

While Black women certainly got their dopamine-driven drama fix from that scene and the story connected to it, Black men on the sidelines looking on could strongly relate to the Black Senator. Because despite Black women’s cries of victimhood by circumstance of not being able to meet any Black men “on their level” in truth, there are many more Senator Davis’ than Black women are willing to admit. By that I mean, Black men who, like C.J. King, have their acts together, have kept out of trouble and “know their worth” – and, like Senator Davis, will not hesitate to leave.

That small detail gets left out of the multi-decades harangue and constant drumbeat of the things King recounted above – and Black women have no one but themselves to blame when Black men have long memories for this sort of thing and are keen to bring right back front and center to Black women’s doorstep.

SHAMELESS PLUG AD BREAK: Like what you’re reading now? Wait till you see my very first book, “The Book of Obsidian: A Manual for the 21st Century Black American Gentleman”, which comes out Summer 2020! Here’s YOUR chance to help me bring the dream to life, by supporting “The Book of Obsidian Fundraising Campaign”! All the details are over at GoGetFunding.com. Now, back to the article!

SO, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Like the fictional Liv, whom millions of Black women deeply related to, Black women themselves have serious, deepseated emotional and even mental issues that lie at the heart of truly bedevils their love lives – not the imaginary “dearth of eligible Black men”. While the Black Vaginavision Media was run amok with tales of “downlow” Black men, Black men being in jail in the millions and Black men not being professionals, the truth is that all of these things are patently false. Today, more Black men than ever before are attending and graduating college – as Mr. King and his twin brother attest to. The numbers of Black men going to jail, are also coming down – way down from its 1990s high during the Crack Wars. Black men are successful in business more than ever and on average, Black men outearn Black women – another mythbuster for your ass. Wanna another one? How about this: Most Black men today are single and childless – and, on top of that, of that number, most Black men WANT to either be married, or at the least, in a long term relationship.

In short, there are more “eligible” Black men than ever – to the point that the term, “educated lame” is the the epithet of the month for Black women online and off. Which brings us round robin back to what the real problem here is – because, as King and millions of other Black men in all walks of life like him prove, it ain’t because Black women can’t find a good, competent Black guy.

No, the problem is this: For many Black women, despite their own position in the American socioeconomic pecking order, they may still have a thing for the rough and tumble “Pookie & Ray-Ray” types. On top of that, many of these same Black women know that said Pookies aren’t very bright, motivated or accomplished – in other words, they’re relatively easy to push around. Many Black women know that guys like King have to be contended with – hence their shrieking in reaction to King declaring himself “the prize”. Many Black women know that beggars can’t be choosy, and that Pookie and them can and will overlook a multitude of imperfections in Black women – you know, like the dowdy, frumpy, often seriously overweight ones that may have good jobs, high educations or just have really great welfare state bennies? What they may lack in looks, sex appeal or just niceness, they may more than makeup for in terms of a place to stay, food to eat and a car to drive. Such arrangements are not at all uncommon, dontcha know (For more on this point, please checkout “Uncle Dave” David Carroll’s excellent podcast analysis, “WEB Dubois, vs. Booker T. Washington & Negro Women”, YouTube, Feb 15, 2020).

And this is the real reason why King’s statement about Black women competing for Black men like him – the top of the food chain – set the ladies off: BECAUSE IT’S TRUE. Simple Econ 101 here, folks! That which is highly desired and sought after is by definition in short supply – and as such, said commodities can command their price on the open mating market. Or, in this case, the open mating market.

And deep down, many Black women know they don’t have the chops to compete, not just among their fellow “ADOS” sisters, but against an increasing number of White, Hispanic, Asian and biracial “exoticals” both here and abroad, who can and will offer what elite Black men like King want. It’s a sobering fact that many Black women are loathe to freely admit, but the numbers of Black like King dating and marrying out don’t lie – hovering around 30% at present – put together with Black women’s reaction on social media to yet another eligible brotha “hopping the fence”, really does say it all.

For decades, Black women have bellowed that they are not enough Black men on their level. C.J. King obliterated that myth with one Instagram post.

What will Black women do now?

Be careful what you wish for, ladies…you just might get it.

Now adjourn your asses…

MOA

Mumia Obsidian Ali is a citizen journalist, podcaster, talk radio show host, newly minted dating coach and soon to be book author. You can catch his daily live shows on the global livestreaming radio website Mixlr, as well as the all-new members-only Obsidian Radio Zoomcast, and his podcasts on YouTube and Black Avenger TV, as well as his weekly dating coach column at the Negromanosphere website. He’s also a semi-professional pest.